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Dessert

Genoese Pastry

A sweet pastry made with flour, butter, sugar, eggs, brandy, baked into a sandwich or filled with fruit or cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Genoese Pastry

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter near the fire.

  2. In a basin, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and eggs until smooth.

  3. Stir in the melted butter until fully combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking tin and bake until cool for pastry sandwiches.

  2. For hot serving, bake in dariole molds and serve with fruit syrup.

  3. If using a large shape, scoop out the center and fill with fruit or whipped cream, then coat with apricot marmalade.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Gives the batter bulk and structure as its starch sets during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and set during baking, giving structure and lift.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown while staying tender.

The step that matters

Stir in the melted butter until fully combined. Butter must be evenly dispersed through the batter. If it is not fully combined, it can separate out and leave greasy streaks, and uneven batter bakes unevenly.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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